To challenge the simplistic notion that
Islam is still in its medieval period, we must engage it academically for its
own sake – not simply out of self-interest

TARIQ RAMADAN

Special to
Globe and Mail Update

January 8, 2008
at 12:08 AM EST

Interest in
Islamic studies has expanded in recent years, but not always for the best of
reasons. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the powers of the day
needed to understand the religious motivations of their colonized subjects. The
rule, for decades, was the self-interested study of Islam; objective academic
discipline was the exception.

How much
further have we come today?

"Islamic
studies" now seem equally driven by non-academic motives.

Western
societies are grappling with three distinct Islam-related factors: a new,
visible generation of Western Muslims, accelerating migratory flows and
terrorism, seen as a threat to both the West and the Islamic world.

International
politics — the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, war in Afghanistan and Iraq,
threats against Iran, eventual Turkish membership in the European Union — also
impinge on the field, as scholars attempt to understand, to prevent and even to
mobilize against the perceived danger of violent Islamism. Key questions are
often framed in binary terms, as a clash of civilizations. In each of these
instances, Islamic studies are directly or indirectly involved in the attempt
to understand and to prevent, to protect, to dominate or even to fight the
adversary of violent Islamism.

It comes as no
surprise that sociologists, political scientists and terrorism experts produce
reams of research on Islam, Muslims, identity, immigration, Islamism,
radicalization, violence and terrorism. Much of their work is funded or
commissioned by government agencies or major corporations. Today, like
yesterday, non-academic criteria propel and justify research.

But this
carefully orchestrated infatuation with Islamic studies reduces several
centuries of Islam's legal heritage, philosophy, mystical thought, and social
and political vitality to a subsidiary position. Beyond the concern generated
by the conflict in Iraq, the richness of the Sunni and Shia traditions and
their millennia-long relationship earns only lip service. Rationalist
philosophers such as Averroes are cited as examples of
"reasonableness," while the thought of Islam's many eminent
theologians and thinkers is ignored.

The time has
come for universities in the West to reconcile themselves with an approach to
other civilizations and cultures — particularly that of Islam — driven neither
by ideological agendas nor collective fears.

The
"global war" against "radicalization and terrorism," that
would make contemporary Islamic studies a discipline besieged by dangerously
utilitarian political considerations must give way to a holistic vision.

If we are
serious about respecting the diversity of civilizations, about the need for
dialogue, about promoting common values, we must urgently rethink the content
of our curricula. The courses of study offered in our universities must embrace
the study of religion, of theology and theological scholarship, of the teaching
of Islamic law and jurisprudence.

It is generally
accepted that practising Jews, Christians, Hindus or Buddhists can perform
their academic duties objectively. Muslim faculty members, however, face
serious obstacles. Practising Muslims may see their objectivity questioned and
be expected to espouse "pro-Western" views.

The
commonplaces of violence and terrorism and the insistence that "Islamic
authorities" denounce these abuses conceal from us a world caught up in
intellectual ferment. From Morocco to Indonesia, from the United States to
Australia by way of Europe and Turkey, a body of fresh and audacious Islamic
thought is emerging. It is not only the work of thinkers known to and
recognized by the West.

Today, an
evolutionary process is sweeping through every Islamic society. Any Islamic
studies curriculum must turn serious attention to this intellectual
effervescence, which in turn implies mastery of Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and other
languages.

Only then can
Islamic studies challenge the simplistic notion that Islam is still in its medieval
period, that it must evolve and experience its own renaissance before it can
catch up with the West and modernity. For when such academic preconditions
become a prerequisite, the study of a religion or civilization ceases to be
academic or objective. It feeds into ideology and justifies domination.

If contemporary
Islamic studies are to evolve in a meaningful way, we must distinguish between
Islam and Muslims on the one hand, and political Islam, Islamism and Islamists
on the other. Even if this has been done, there remains room for serious
critical reappraisal of the instruction on offer in many of our universities.

How else to
explain why certain violent groups are lent an interpretative authority based
on little more than either willful negligence … or ignorance? Perhaps the
outstanding example of this treatment is Ibn Taymiyya, the 13th-century scholar
who some consider the quintessential extremist thinker. The speech and actions
of today's violent Islamists become windows through which the Islamic heritage,
and Islamic scholars themselves, are interpreted and judged.

Contemporary
Islamic studies face another major challenge: that of reconciling students
drawn to the field with this complex, multilayered and multidimensional world.
Knowledge of languages, cultures, memories and histories, of social dynamics
and evolution are the essential parameters if we are to study the other as he
actually is, and not as a demographic, cultural or political threat.

As more and
more Western Muslims enroll in Islamic studies programs, they bring with them
their "insider's" knowledge and sensibilities.

Meanwhile,
professors and instructors have begun to question the old paradigms more
insistently, to objectify "Islam," to transform it into a more
coherent, more complete and ultimately more academic discipline.

Islamic studies
must be taken seriously. Politicians, university administrators, faculty and
students must say so; they must make a firm commitment to re-evaluate
critically and constructively what our academic institutions offer today.

Tariq
Ramadan, a fellow of St. Antony's College, Oxford, traces the changes and
continuities in the West's interest in Islam in the December, 2007, issue of
Academic Matters: The journal of higher education (www.ocufa.on.ca).